Rebecca Heise
Current University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Research Area
Lung injury and repair
Research Summary
Rebecca Heise's research targets using engineering to fix injured lungs. In particular, she focuses on pulmonary mechanobiology and regenerative medicine. She seeks to understand how the mechanical environment in the lung influences cellular behavior in health and disease with in vitro and in vivo models. Heise also researches the use of naturally-derived extracellular matrix as a biomaterial for cell and drug delivery to the lung.
Background
Dr. Rebecca Heise has served as the department chair of biomedical engineering at VCU since 2024. In 2023, Dr. Heise was awarded the Inez A Caudill Jr Distinguished Professorship in Biomedical Engineering. She holds an affiliate appointment in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at VCU and is a member of the Massey Cancer Center, the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, and the Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering. She earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with an additional major in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003. She earned her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. She then did her postdoctoral work in the Laboratory of Respiratory Biology at the NIEHS in Research Triangle Park, NC. She joined the faculty of Biomedical Engineering at VCU in 2010, earned promotion and tenure at the Associate level in 2017, and became a full Professor in 2024. Dr. Heise’s research focuses on pulmonary mechanobiology and regenerative medicine. Her laboratory has been consistently funded by the NIH, NSF, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Alma Mater
University of Pittsburgh (PhD) and Carnegie Mellon University (BS)